Ditch the outdated: Making the move to next-gen legal tech

Gain invaluable insights from experienced leaders on how to successfully implement next-gen legal tech solutions. Discover how cutting-edge legal tech is driving significant changes in the legal sector today, and what's on the horizon for the future.

Speakers

Victoria Swedjemark - Founder, Glowmind
Richard Wolff - Chief Legal Officer, Cambio Group
Lorna Khemraz - Senior Legal Counsel, Teya
Coletta Braun - Legal Counsel, Secret Escapes

Transcript

0:04 Hi, everyone. Welcome to this webinar today. Thank you so much for joining us on your Thursday lunchtime to have a wonderful open discussion around legal technology and you're all here as drivers for this change. And if anyone here is still doubting on Nicole, then you won't be by the end of this hour.

0:22 There's a reason why Legalist, one of the last departments within a business to adopt legal tech or tech.

0:27 I should say and this wave of Sass that's come over the last few years.

0:31 And that's because we know that 77% of legal tech implementations over the last 10 years have failed.

0:38 And we're here as this team to change that.

0:40 And we brought together a group of phenomenal experience leaders.

0:44 In the in-house legal space, we have Lorna cameras, who's a Senior Counsel at ..., and all in one payments and more solution, one of the fastest growing fintech businesses in the UK.

0:55 We have Richard Wolff General Counsel at Cambio, a leading European, a health provider.

1:00 We have Colleta Braun Legal account so it's Secret Escapes, leading UK based travel company.

1:06 And we have the wonderful Victoria ... form, a GC at ... driving legal operations that in Sweden and now running her own global consultancy business as well.

1:16 And finally, we have Victoria, a couple of from Pocket Law. And we're going to be leading the discussion today. My name is Dylan Chambers, Director of Revenue here below. And I'll be leading the conversation and moderating this as we go.

1:29 As we jump in, feel free to send some questions in the question channel that you have at the bottom of your screen. And there's also a chat as well for some more general communications, actually, if you want to have it.

1:40 But let's get straight into the content, to make the most of an hour that we have as a team together. And I'll start with you, Richard.

1:46 Given your massive experience as a General counsel and your role in management at Cambio, what has been your biggest pains relating to legal that man hours simply won't solve?

1:56 But obviously there are quite a few paints where a fast growing company with lots of different areas of work and very Lean legal team.

2:06 And man hours will solve a little bit of it, having more people doing legal contracts and so on. But but there are a few pains that I think can be so much better through technology. So ... arrives strive to do is push as much as possible out into the lines to enable them to do a lot of legal work themselves Still giving me the confidence that we are where we are in terms of risks, where we want to be and so on. So, so there's been a lot of pains, and one of the biggest pain, so I think man hours cannot solve, or at least, I haven't been able to solve. It, is the parallel line of authorizations and whose signs off on war. And the large company, we're always in a lot of different bids entering into a lot of different agreements And a few months or years down the line. there are questions of how did we enter into this, who agreed to it, what did we agree to before we entered into it?

3:01 Obviously, I want to know that when we enter into an agreement, everyone who needs to be a stakeholder, and it has signed off on it. And that has been tricky. I've been to quite a few different companies, and I've never seen a good solution for it. With legal tech guy can all of a sudden connect this to actually getting the agreement signed. And I get all the internal sign off from all the different stakeholders in one place before an offer is sent, that is legally binding or an agreement is entered into. And, I haven't been able to solve this through man hours, only technology can solve this for me.

3:32 And it's been, it's getting so much easier. And my feeling of security in the company is so much greater when this is in place.

3:40 so, that's one of the key points for me, I think, amazing. Thank you so much, Richard and really insightful And moving to you, Lorna. And you have a huge team of lawyers at ..., and you were really driven into utilizing tech to build out your legal operations more than a year ago. Could you tell us a little bit about the rationale to start using software to support your legal ops?

4:03 Yeah, of course.

4:04 So, just a bit of background about me, I spent a number of years in private practice before moving a house.

4:12 and the first thing that really struck me when I arrived was the inefficiencies.

4:20 And that kickstarted the whole process, I mean, I'd say, kickstart, and the in house, and in the in house face, because even in private practice, I was always super interested in leveraging pay to make purchases, smoother, more efficient.

4:36 And for me, the bottom line is removing friction to increase happiness levels day-to-day, and little things that really sped up decision making, or identifying priorities.

4:57 Spotting, pockets of inefficiency.

4:59 So, for example, looking at something as basic as the templates that we were using to draft contracts, was that a standardized template at all?

5:13 If a request came in, team member A, they would deal with it in a certain way that would be different to team member B or C, which means that then everybody's like re-inventing the wheel every single time.

5:26 So for me, it was spotting these opportunities, whenever I saw efficiencies, and I didn't find ways that we could do things a lot simpler, which means that we're then carving out space for the more fun stuff, right, For automating and improving efficiencies, we're just, we have so much more time to spend on the interesting legal challenges and lessons, the admin, time lost in digging up my files or. Trusting the same pauses over and over again.

6:02 Oh, manually, getting approvals for different in the context of different workflows?

6:09 So that was the driver can be reviewed, removing friction and making legal work well, fun.

6:17 Yeah, it makes a lot of sense. I think that idea of friction as rho is such a pain point that people fill time and time again. I think one thing that I'm going to do now for the group is, I'm gonna launch a poll, and the poll is going to be, have you implemented legal tech solutions before?

6:34 Just while we're on this call, I feel we get to get some interaction guy, so please feel free to answer the question and give us your thoughts.

6:42 Whilst we're doing that. Richard, how did you get started with Legal Tech? Well, how did you even think about going about it?

6:50

Well, I'm lazy by nature, so anything that can help me get other people to do things for me, while I still feel secure that they do it the right way, the better it is. So, I was fairly early into looking at these things.

7:06

And we had changed contract management systems when I joined Cambio, we had one before. It did help a little bit, but nowhere near as much as the system we have now, which is obviously pocket law.

7:19

And, to me, the driver was to make sure that I could multiply myself without having to put in much more work. And that's basically what I've gained, positive a few other things, gives me statistics, I can follow up on my business. I can see how efficient we are, and so on, which I like as well. It's always nice to have numbers to see what you're doing, and that you're doing something good as a lawyer, it's hard to find KPIs otherwise, but here all of a sudden you can have KPIs They can be measured or they can actually show that you're generating a benefit for the company. I either saving money or you know, what the contracts can contain, and so on.

7:55

And all of a sudden, you can measure it, which is nice.

7:59

So so those were my drivers. Mainly not having to do all the work, same repetitive work over and over and over again.

8:07

Which, which makes a lot of sense.

8:09

I think in order for you to do that, right, you've got to bring in teams outside of legal to take on some of that burden take on some of that workload. So, I'm gonna ask another question right now, So just to give you the answer to that, previous about 83% of people on the call have implemented some Tech before, so we've got a lot of experience here on the webinar.

8:29

The next question is, have you successfully implemented it outside the legal team, So have you got these other teams to get involved and sort of take part, and launch this poll is up, I'm gonna come back to you, Laura. I'm going to ask, how did you, how did your team, both the legal team but also the non lawyers react to the idea of bringing in new software, how did you engage them?

8:50

Well, I think we have to separate the initial reaction to the subsequent reaction and uptake once the team was once the tool was actually rolled out.

9:01

Initially, there's always a bit of a gap between that people who are really closely involved with, um, selecting the tools, because they know the tools inside out, and they know what value the tool is going to bring.

9:23

And that's, there's always a bit of, I mean, it can be difficult to communicate the same level of enthusiasm to, with other areas of the business.

9:34

So, I know to expect that now, and I know that may be other areas of business.

9:41

Business more naturally match the same energy as I have.

9:47

But what I have found is that, as if the tool is simple to use, and it's intuitive, and we can really convey what the specific benefits are going to be for that specific area of the business.

10:03

The buy in. Because so much easier, and I really love to see that with my pocket, not, for example, because we've implemented, we've rolled it out to our partnerships team, and our people team, and it's amazing to see the buy in. And they are coming up now with suggestions to us, how can we automate this? Can we do this? Can we do that? So, it's, it's really nice to see.

10:28

And I've, I've come to realize that we have to give, people have the ability to test the tool, see the results for themselves, because they won't just buy into it until they see tangible impact of a particular tool.

10:49

Yeah, it makes sense. And you'll be fascinated to know.

10:53

In our poll, despite the fact that a lot of people have implemented that only 50% of a time of people getting people outside of legal to see the value and benefit of using legal tech. And it comes back to exactly what you just said. What is the benefit for me outside of legal to be using this?

11:09

But it was really interesting, what you said around the fact, that when people start to see it, and they start to feel that benefit, they keep coming back to you. And they're like, oh, I want to do this one, I want to do that. Let me do this, like, how far can we push it?

11:21

And it only starts when we get that, that excitement going, and we have to be really careful about how we do that, right, Because we've got to drive that at the beginning. And if we don't, and if we don't get out of excitement, it can be hard to recap recaptcha. It lays down the line.

11:36

Because it's something that might have been out for a year, and I haven't used it. So we've got to really capture them at the beginning.

11:42

Absolutely.

11:42

And just to add to that, as well, I think it's super helpful to take people along the journey, and not simply, at the beginning, if you like shortlisting, and then at the point of decision making.

11:55

It's really, really, I've found it's super valuable to take people along the journey, explain the rationale, get feedback, socialize ideas for different solutions.

12:05

Because, um, We only have one perspective for our specific use cases.

12:12

And, the only way that we'll get real value, in that Shortlisting process, is by involving a really, really involving the teams who, who will be deriving value out of these solutions.

12:25

And very often, as use cases that we don't think of, But others do, so it is always great to involve people along the journey.

12:36

That's a really excellent point, and something that we obviously see in a lot of conversations, we have with partners across the, across the spectrum of different types of companies. The ones who include us early, late in, that sort of decision making process, OK, yeah, we're gonna, we're going to scope out the project, the Skype with this. But we can do, before we select, some technology we're going to use and we're going to include sales, HR, marketing, whoever it is. Partnerships are going to bring them all in, and get their ideas as to how they're going to use this before we make a decision ourselves. It means that bought in on that decision, as well, right from the very beginning. Rather than it being told to them at the last minute, basis, what we're going to be de, jump on board place, and to make our lives easier and legal. Amazing, thank you so much. So, let's say I want to bring you in next. And I know that you've used technology a lot in the past.

13:24

That Secret Escapes talk to us about, why implementation can fail, when rolling out legal tech, What have you experience?

13:31

I think, I think a great part of that is what you, Lorna already mentioned this. When implementing legal tech, I've made the experience that a lot of people are very skeptical of the beginning. And I've always felt that the initiator of the legal tech integration of the only fun.

13:51

And the people that should actually use it are very skeptical because you want them to change their comment process.

14:00

So they need to get out of their comfort zone for awhile. And it's always easier to stick to your old habits and workflows instead of changing something.

14:10

So you can't you can't involve everyone from the business, this, this process of choosing the right software stuff.

14:23

So I think a good onboarding process is key for the success of a software integration. On the one hand, I mean, the users need to see the advantages of using the software compared to their current old process.

14:39

And, on the other hand, they don't want to spend too much time with that process, because then it will always be easier to stick to the old one.

14:50

And, of course, it must be easy experience.

14:53

You need to provide super clear and simple user interface, which is basically self explaining and instinctive so that people don't need to spend too much time that the sulfur integration, otherwise, the hurdles too high, to use it on a permanent basis.

15:17

But then, of course, the software itself, it, too, needs to deliver enough advantages, or you're the business. Yeah.

15:24

Let's say those three things are key, it's smooth onboarding process, it's so simple, user interface, of course, a good software.

15:34

Oh, nice.

15:35

Like with, I loved one thing, you said that at the beginning around, when we think about who we're going to include early in this decision making process ahead, I'd say, We've made the decision, we want to make our lives better, we need to bring people in on this journey with us in the business.

15:51

It's not just about going out and grabbing everyone and saying, like, you come like, let's get your ideas because that could get completely overwhelming Alright? We might end up with lights and haze of people to want to listen to different directions. Say, I want to do this. I want to do that.

16:05

So, we've got to find those people, who are going to be really influential, So they're going to bring their teams along for the journey in an inspirational way, but they're also going to know enough about the process to be able to educate us and work with us to make sure we're using the tech in the right way. So, I guess open question to the group.

16:24

How do we find those people who are going to take us on this journey internally?

16:31

Maybe you guys have Victoria, as we've not come to you.

16:34

Sure.

16:35

I think it's about understanding where legal fits into the overall ecosystem. If you like, I mean, if you look at an enterprise, I mean, it's a, it's a huge ecosystem of the sales process requirements.

16:48

You have all these different parts of the company, and I think it starts with understanding its role in that. I think that's very, very helpful, because that can also help you. I mean, depending on what problem you're trying to solve with technology or what you wanted to sort of accomplish with it.

17:05

If you know where it will fit in, then I think you have the answer there.

17:09

I think, for example, I mean, if you're gonna roll out the contract management solution, for example. And you need to look at, of course, the parts of the company that's work with contracts, and you need to understand who they are and how you need to interact with them, and the biggest role in those processes.

17:24

So, I think that the legal team that gets this, that death is the most, are the best, are those that, sort of, integrate, and really have this sort of process thinking, if you like.

17:38

And I think, also, I think, more hands on, your can, of course, do some kind of, sort of stakeholder mapping that I really tried to sort of identify, like, who are the key stakeholders? So, which we need to sort of onboard or get insights from. Or, this is, sort of, manage the, the change that we're planning to be successful. Whether it's appropriate.

17:57

But, I think, to me, I think that's a that's a really important thing to develop.

18:04

That's sort of, um, I don't know, process intelligence, or organizational intelligence, as the legal team. And really sort of understand where you fit in. And that's always, I think, a good way to make sure that legal tech is not something you just do in your legal silo.

18:18

But it's something that you do as part of the enterprise.

18:22

And I think that is where you can really get leverage, or investments in legal, in the tech space, because then that can be really beneficial for them, for them.

18:31

Although, of course, sometimes you have a really sort of legal domain, things, which are very, sort of interlagos function as well, but, but I think that's That's a good That's sort of develop that type of thinking.

18:42

Yeah, it's interesting. I mean, the way that you're talking about it, it makes me think that implementation doesn't start when we procured a tool, where we're thinking about how we get it into, you know, single sign on, or whatever it is. It starts when we made this decision, that we're going to fundamentally change the way that we're working, and it starts with things like stakeholder maps. Like you say, you know, every single person that I touch this business is influenced in some way by legal. Whether I speak to them once every six months, because they're handling their own contracts, and I don't even wanna get involved. Or, there's somebody that I speak to every day, but because it's business critical stuff that I'm always involved.

19:18

And we need to understand that lay of the land and be, I guess, take a step back before we take bold steps forward and change our world.

19:27

Amazing. I've got some more questions, I'll come back in a moment. But I wanted to bring in Vicki.

19:31

Um, I know you're super, super eager to join, I can see in your face. They tell us about your sort of experience using several legal tools, that you've used in the past, as various jobs and is GC, and tell us about why you decided to join pocket law, instead of communist journey with us.

19:50

Fantastic, I'll try to be fairly quick. Everyone knows me, and knows that. No words.

19:55

A few words may not be my strongest, but first of all, I just need to say from the bottom of my heart, I just love the fact how You talk about your work situation in a very proactive manner, us, and you know, this is what we will do. Let's take a step back.

20:08

Let's assess, why are we here, what kind of value are we looking to add to the company, right, and how can we achieve that just that proactive approach is so refreshing.

20:20

I can be the first one out. Admitting that, that is not really how I worked, you know, 10, 10 years in house as a GC and as a senior in hotels.

20:29

So before that, Spotify, my work-life was, was, on the contrary, extremely reactive, Right?

20:37

I mean, and that is, to a large extent, part of the problem, and there was so much to do, and I was just swamped in trying to keep up and trying to get done, and I think that is, you know, that sort of frustration throughout those 10 years and all that hard work.

20:52

Is certainly, you know, summarizing why I, why I decided to team up with the founders of vulkan or trying to create something different.

20:59

I'll try to be quick, but also just elaborate quickly on a few of the problems that I experienced.

21:05

And, then, you can confirm if you agree.

21:07

But, but, I think, you know, as Z of T, between 2016 and 2020, So, bear with me if, a few years from now But, you know, many of the pins are still the same from any of us. But my primary objective as disables was clearly to balance business value with risks.

21:25

Obviously, yes, digital healthcare provider, in the midst of launching GDPR.

21:31

And the risk was substantial.

21:35

Which is definitely what fast forward my my thinking about legal tech because to me, Yemen there were so many critical risks for that business. That needed to be managed in the best possible way.

21:47

So, I simply could not afford to lose one valuable minutes on admin, Or as as I put it now, I'm in on things that that the organization would, would recognize or would, would need to accomplish several times, because then we could see some sort of standard, an awesome.

22:04

It's thoughtful, and that is what, you know, how I got started in my thinking of leveraging take. And, of course, I mean, I looked up everyone else in the management in and how they leverage technology and, you know, played with their forecasts and leverage data in their major decisions. And, Oh, ha, ha, wow, You know that, that.

22:26

But it's my job or my gut feeling basically, was forced to.

22:31

So, this was, I mean, maybe I can just clarify that possibility or opportunity to start using legal tech was very, very clear and natural to me. Because it was, you know, I felt strongly that.

22:44

If I don't try to explore this opportunity, it will likely lead to failure itself.

22:49

Because of, you know, all the admin manual work that did not in itself lead to success for the business.

22:59

So obviously I'm in the sixties startup at the time. we were approached by various tools on the market, and we tried more or less all of them. You know, in our due diligence to find the best legal tech tool at the time, so we tried Euro, We tried ironclad precisely, we had hello sign for signing and so on, but none of them was a success.

23:19

And let me try. Maybe this is the interesting part. Let me try to elaborate on why did we fail implementation. Maybe we did, but I think there's a lot more to it than that.

23:31

To summarize a bit them, in all these systems that I mentioned, they were pinpointing very specific problems, like contract automation. or the fact that the contact process is spread out in 10 or 15 manual steps in various systems with various different stakeholders. Which results in a mess, right.

23:47

Loads of human errors and manual steps. Then you have this storage or Apple satori part of it. Where do you store, you know, gather all your contracts, so that you can find the signed version, or whenever you need it, or get that information?

24:03

That also turned out to be extremely tricky, because, in my experience, getting the organization to send and store documents post execution, there was simply too little incentive for the organization to do that extra work.

24:18

So that worked, really bad.

24:21

And then, is signing. I mean, of course, is signing is fantastic. We will remember when we did you know, use a snail mail.

24:26

But that is just a very, very tiny part of the process. So, well, so we felt that we need to invest in several tools, only on the legal side to manage all of this. And that is not sustainable. People, don't love platforms.

24:41

Especially, didn't know.

24:44

Yeah, I mean, it's very tricky to get people to move from, like, 4 or 5, 6 things to get a process done. Like, completely, completely agree with that, Michelle, from my perspective.

24:56

That's super, super interesting, and, like, I, I agree. That's a whole different spectrum of different areas in, which we can jump and, Ryan, So pain, actually.

25:05

Wanted to bring in Victoria, as well, actually, and just say, bye, I, I know that you discuss a lot, right, with GCs, legal, August. Like people, like with Vicki's background, you're probably speaking to five, a day. What are they saying right now around that journey that Vicky was just talking about around, like, all these different facets and how would I think about solving.

25:28

Yeah. I think, first of all, of course, a lot of people are at different stages of these developments on my released, early on into this journey. Others are more progress.

25:37

Maybe I have some failed projects and the baggage. And sort of what happened here.

25:43

What I'm learning to do, others are, maybe, sort of, further advances that are having a, maybe more of a set us transformation plan with various sort of ambitious targets, and so forth. So it varies a lot.

25:57

I think on the maturity level, I think that's that's an observation that which I think also it's really important to have to do some kind of soul searching to see, I mean, like, how mature are we? What is our starting point?

26:11

I think that's really important to understand, because I think if you jump immediately to really advance the solution, or you think that if you just buy this super shiny take, it will solve all your problems. I think it's better to sort of zoom out of it and see what is actually our starting point.

26:28

What is our majority, and what resources do we have, What can we work with?

26:32

What internal solutions?

26:35

So we have, how can external solutions complement that and just sort of start to? And I think some of those sort of jump straight to tech are now set up.

26:46

Reframing the bit and sort of backing.

26:50

Backing up a bit, if then maybe doing a bit more of that foundational, we're trying to really understand what solving here and where are we actually going with this?

27:03

So, maybe get more structure and, also, of course, implement the learnings they have from from, maybe sulfate products, as well.

27:11

And I think a lot of the teams failed in change management, and I also think that a lot of the initiatives have actually been under resourced. And I think that's another very common.

27:25

Pitfall, that good thing. You can actually sort of do this without running it as a proper product and resourcing it properly and so forth.

27:33

So suggested maybe learning that you need to do it more in a more sort of structural fashion, and perhaps, awesome.

27:43

It's really, it's so funny that you say that because we, we have these conversations right, all the time. We've got people coming to us every day asking to see the platform. We want to know how it's going to change our life.

27:53

And we have to slow people down and say, no, no. Let's just take some time to really understand like what impact we can have within your organization. Rather than just showing you a shiny demo and getting you excited and then wanting to buy it and off you go.

28:09

We have to slow people down because we want it to be a success. And exactly, as you've just said, we need to sometimes slow down to move fast. We have to understand the landscape of what we're trying to sell. And understand where we are, before we can decide where we want to be. So Richard, I'll come back teeth, when you are looking for solutions. That, what, what introspection did you do on the state of play before you made that decision?

28:34

Oh, there were a few things that were important to us.

28:38

The parallel track of having internal documents, going along with the external documents that are only internally, that was a key part. That was really a problem I wanted to solve. So, so having good functionality or the opportunity to get good functionality on, that was a key point.

28:54

But then, to me, it was identifying quick wins, obviously, being able to see the growth in the entire possibilities or opportunities with the software was looking for was one thing, but also finding the quick wins. Where do I solve Immediate pain points and where solve them well? And then taking a very, very stepwise approach.

29:14

There's, uh, maybe Wierd saying in Swedish is: How do you eat an elephant?

29:19

one bite at a time. And it's very much the same here. How would you eat this elephant? And if you don't do it one bite at a time, you're going to choke. It's not going to work. So finding the most obvious pain points starting with them, you don't have to have the full Monty. Not everything needs to be integrated at once.

29:36

If you start solving a few pain points and have the opportunity of continuing solving bigger ones or other ones later on, well, that's a good start, You've already accomplished something, and then finding the ambassadors that will help you with that, that will see the benefit.

29:51

And, obviously, the ones that are most involved will be the ones who have the easiest time seeing those benefits. But getting as many ambassadors as possible on board. Getting people that typically don't enjoy generating a contract or getting into negotiation with counterparties.

30:06

Get them involved and let them see how easy it is for them to do it by themselves. And then you hold their hand, and you walk with them the first time, I hope I don't need you for this.

30:16

Be happy, Richard means. So take those quick wins. Find the ambassadors and take the quick Wins and then do it step by step. That, at least for me, has been the key point. Because it's always big, and it always takes forever. And all of a sudden, you're standing in front of a huge mountain that you're afraid you're never going to be able to climb up.

30:35

I mean, I think one of the takeaways I'm having from this conversation so far is just how much collaboration is crucial, and the ambassadors, if the people we work with on a day-to-day basis, is so critical to making this a success that we can carry this backpack by ourselves. We can't just hire another five lawyers to fix it. That's that's not gonna take us. And thank you so much.

30:55

That's super interesting, So please, feel free, everyone who's watching to drop some questions in the question chat, or in the chat itself. I will be monitoring that, and we can ask some questions at the end. We'll save some time for some questions, so please feel free to jump in with any thoughts or questions. But we want to jump now into a little bit more forward looking so looking into the future.

31:19

And I want to come to you next, Lorna and just ask How do you balance your time when you get to the implementation stage? How do you balance implementing legal tech with your business as usual work?

31:33

I mean, the implementation is, perhaps way, it's a little less time intensive. Actually.

31:40

I think the whole, I think you have to, to look at the whole picture.

31:47

So, I mean, I've always been extremely resourceful, and I think we all are, actually, it's, you know, we, as human beings, were essentially, energy saving devices. That's how we survive.

32:02

And I find, you know, personal interests every day, in prioritizing finding the most efficient way of doing our day-to-day.

32:15

So in that sense, it can be quite natural to prioritize specific.

32:25

Legal ops work streams Over on my day-to-day. But it's not. It's not. It's not without challenge.

32:31

And that's where I really like Rich's point around, you know, effective prioritization and securing the quick wins when you can and letting those keep keep you going because, unless you have a whole team of legal up's professionals, it is something that inevitably, well, fall by the wayside because you have your whole legal work stream to prioritize.

32:59

So it's not without challenge, but it is something that I do with passion, because I'm so so focused on finding solutions, finding those efficiencies.

33:11

Because I can see how it benefits the wider organization. And that's what keeps me going.

33:17

And with that, you know, as as we get more buy in in an organization with the benefits of equal pay that's been implemented, there's more momentum that comes with it, and we'll interests.

33:31

And, but that comes, then the promise of more resources and more investment in that area. So, I'd say at the beginning, it is kind of a battle that sometimes you have to fight on your own, but as you have you secure those quick wins, there's a momentum that builds up and that momentum is something that we can capitalize on to secure the right resource. And invest in an area that is so beneficial for so much more than just a vehicle.

34:01

Yeah. Yeah, for sure. It's really interesting. It's a similar point. I guess. Well, Richard Saturday and staring up at the mountain, it may feel like you've got to do all of this by yourself, but it will get easier.

34:11

Once you, when those people over and you bring them on board and you, you hand over, the responsibility, somewhat amazing, thank you so much. So I wanted to come to ...

34:22

and just ask when you are looking for new solutions, So Classy, you've got some experience obviously with legal tech stuff that hasn't gone so well. What, what sort of capabilities to do you find that would level up your current operations, What we, what did you, what did you see in the market?

34:41

So, um, yeah, when, when evaluating new solutions, we look for four capabilities, but of course, but provide essential improvement over our existing processes.

34:52

So we have some legal tech tools in place that were not so much use, but also.

35:01

yeah, the people, some, some of them, they didn't really know about the tools. Some of them, like using it. So the bus.

35:10

And for example, we have to find some new contract matching tool.

35:19

We were looking for software, wouldn't be able to automate all the contract work. That would be possible, because I mean, a lot of work around contractors, study noise. Yeah. People use templates already, but sometimes it means more than just filling out gaps.

35:40

For example, when you have more options in one contract, you can choose some dependencies that are automatically reflected or for example we have large playbooks, which are excellent sheets at the moment, where we say, OK, this is the pushback from the supplier or from the other media party, and this is the amendment we can offer to the contract and this whole negotiation process.

36:12

Also the approval process that comes after was this still pretty much manual at the moment, but yeah, would be great to provide business kind of a self-service tool, so that the legal team itself, a smaller capacity for high about your work.

36:34

Yeah.

36:35

Well, also looking for boats signing up for so that the relevant documentation will not suddenly come. Afterwards, that's also what we experienced.

36:47

Like, you start with your, with your tool. Everything is there that is just gone after awhile because you can reflect any amendments, or yeah. It's done.

37:02

Buy, DocuSign, or something.

37:07

And then your comps, you know, after awhile, if this contract has been signed, where it's fine, that starts to get to get confusing.

37:20

And yeah, Important thing is that you can totally rely on the information that is in the system, that you can trust the system, because otherwise when you, when you start losing trust in it because the information this just talk halfway through, I think that's an excellent point. I think the the thing about implementation and efficiency. So, all of these things that we're aiming to get, so we can focus on these high value tasks that are going to make us more valuable in a business and utilize the skill sets.

37:53

And we spent years trying to, if I say, we, I'm not a lawyer you, expand years training for, and you have that expertise, it won't be realized If we ultimately don't fully embrace the technology, and we get it used across the business, because as ... says, you know, if there's a pocket of people, you can decide I didn't love this. I'm going to do this a different way.

38:15

Suddenly, we're in a situation where it's not all in one place, and so are all in one way or platform is not being used effectively. And if it's not being used as Northern mondego platform, then there's risk, and if there's risk than it stress for you guys.

38:30

And so we have to make sure, and this is something that I know that our team focuses on so heavily is that we don't want any fout implementations.

38:39

We don't want anyone not to fully embrace and use this platform and we will not rest.

38:45

If we have somebody who is not using a half using it or a slapdash, we have to be pushing always towards that goal of usage. And Vicky, Pocket, I'll come back to you and tell us a little bit about your experiences as well with pain in tech and where it didn't work.

39:03

But, I think at the end and to be fairly quick, this time, I think, what you're all touching upon and you said it really well Victoria, when it's understand why we're here as in-house counsels, and that is, you know, to secure the business right. And that we build a sustainable business, prefer B and allow flexibility to do new things and innovates. And that means, in itself, obviously, that legal is everywhere.

39:28

You can get business done without legal which is a blessing and a curse. But that sell them just to be super explicit in order to be successful using legal tech. It can't be used only by lawyers.

39:40

I think that is, how many legal teams, you know, work today? more or less siloed from the business?

39:46

Not intentionally this, but because, you know, we were forced to be reactive, were swamped in work.

39:55

So, I think one critical feature that is super important for me at least, I think, would be allowing everyone in the business to use the technology in a very user friendly and simple way. I think that drives success. I mean, ideally, I think that the brilliant lawyers could and should be responsible for it for the standard or the playbook.

40:17

I mean, the recommendation on, you know, this is how we, how we manage niggle, We are the experts. But then we would allow the team, the other teams, to execute.

40:27

Yeah, that, that is, you know, an ideal world for me, and I think, also, I'm in. and one thing that I've always been super passionate about this, and inspired from other leaders outside of, maybe the legal sphere, is how they leverage the more, and more.

40:41

And I think that is also always something that I've missed in, in traditional legal tech systems, they'd been solving.

40:49

Or maybe automating a specific flow.

40:52

But we haven't really leveraged it.

40:54

Yeah, yeah, going back to your point around ease of use.

40:59

If the platform is designed for lawyers, it is not going to be successful within the business.

41:03

Like, if it is designed purely just for lawyers, it has to be something where everyone in the business can get involved and use it and not feel like it, a challenge or block.

41:16

And, and that goes back to your point, Exactly, Vicki, And so, I wanted to talk about the future, I want to get into, like, ideal state. Where are we going to be five years time, 10 years, time?

41:26

So, I'm going to start with you, Victoria, and I'm going to ask, What KPIs do you think will be attached to legal in 10 years from now? How do you see it working 10 years, five years, you can put your time stamp on it, but what do you see as the future for you?

41:39

I think it KPIs, of course, is a very specific part of it, but I think it's a lot about what type of role the liquid wants to have. I think that's one thing to enrich. Of course, you are attaching your KPIs to, but also, whatever he wants to spend our time on.

41:57

And I think it's, it's really, I think, I think, And I think we touched on this before, I think, I think, My future vision for legal and ethical. And I mentioned them, Rich. And this is, Of course, that's, Lawyers get to spend their time on some different types of things them.

42:11

in, The law is still today, I think that it's really the opportunity, and I think that in the future, that will have happened in, the more that lawyers are not spending their time on their routine mundane, sort of standardized both things, but they're either moving into a strategic problem solving.

42:32

Cross functional collaboration, creativity, innovation, all those things, and I think ideally that is what you want to measure. What's I mean, your contribution in that space, is I think that it's Like. How can you actually show your value of their ethnic function? I think that is sort of a driver.

42:48

And then I think in terms, so you can also, of course, measure how I think it's about sort of freeing up time for the team. That is one key. Element of the other part is, of course, delivering great service as opposed to the business, which is also something that you can measure. You can, for example, measure the effectiveness of your self serving solutions, for example, or how much time you save, and so forth, And, of course, Kelly, with technology, you can count on them.

43:14

Of course, measure a lot more things, I think that's like Richard said, I think a lot of the opportunities of technology, it's also about beta, right? So what type of data can you generate in in the tech that you use? And of course, you can use that data source of feed. Your KPI, you're measuring your dashboards, and therefore, what I think is a great opportunity for legal, too.

43:36

Really tell a story about the value that tickled brains and also speaking the language of business as I think in the future.

43:44

Phenology will enable that to transition, and also will make lawyers more tech enabled. And, I think, in the process, the purpose. OK, guys, this is a sort of, showcase value, and that in, in new forms of ways. I think that's my mission.

43:57

If I could add just, one thing that I think quality assurance, and one single source of truth is something we haven't touched upon here, But if we integrate the legal contract management system with all its metadata that you take out of the agreements into the CRM system, and the financial systems, And, all of a sudden, the single source of truth. Truth, is actually what you have in the agreement. And when that doesn't add up to what you invoice, you'll get a warning, and, all of a sudden, you have quality assurance all the way through.

44:27

And, when there are discrepancies, you know, why, if you have an addendum or another contract or continue sale or whatever, but you will know it in a completely different way. So, I think Quality Assurance and one source of truth, would be much more reachable with this, implemented all the way through.

44:44

I totally agree, I think it was about legal ability to be sort of an aggregator or an integrator. I think that's a great opportunity to tie the Knot summits.

44:56

Amazing, thank you, Richard fatty.

44:57

I think, going back to that point. I speak to so many people who are missing, like renewal dates and supply contracts. It's tricking over there, having to pay and increase fee all of these sorts of things. Because, yeah, it doesn't match with the equivalent that's in the CRM? Or whatever is stored in all these other systems. And, Laura, I'd love to come to you on that on that piece, like, where do you see data from legal, or having an impact in your role?

45:26

Data's everything. Is everything and building on what she didn't ambiguous.

45:30

A Mike, Long term, vision or dream ideal state is really for legal to be in a position. Where we all create eating.

45:40

Value in a tangible way.

45:43

So, really buy into this, like Eagle, as a business, running business concepts.

45:49

And, we are legal wigan organizations, right, and what your businesses do, businesses create value and I am good, I mean, I know we'll get there someday, but it would be so, so valuable to be able to manipulate data in a way that demonstrates, OK, let's look at our contracting landscape. Legal has been able to limit contractual exposure, X amount of ways. This is our overall liability cap or legal, has contributed.

46:24

Increasing the speed at which the sales team are closing deals on legal operate.

46:31

Being able to put some figures on how much resources actually costing and supporting the business on specific product rollouts.

46:41

All these different types of metrics I think there is so much scope for, for us to make strides in that space and really shift the mindset from legal just being a risk manager and a cost center to really creating true value.

47:00

Because as Vicky was saying, Eagle is everywhere and we are supporting in various ways.

47:09

Yeah but we're not demonstrating it. We don't demonstrating that value.

47:14

And the focus is on risk management, which is, right, It should always be there.

47:21

We also have so much creative potential because we can identify risks, but we also can block and get creative with also sieve, Business Initiatives.

47:35

Yep.

47:36

I may just simply Super quick comment on that, Lauren, I think you're so right.

47:42

And I think on top of demonstrating value, helping us prioritize Everyone wants to do a good job. I mean, that's not the problem, And everyone is working really hard. My problem in the past was to prioritize because I didn't see it.

47:56

I kept on re-inventing the wheel, as some somebody mentioned. And also, I mean, it's a lot of trees, but didn't see trends into the woods, if you know what I mean.

48:05

But, when you look at data, it is, I mean, I think we would've just agree on priorities by looking at that as a, wow, is this true, then we need to know, we need to manage this workflow. This is extremely inefficient, or, why is it that we keep on agreeing to disclose, that could be super bad for the business?

48:24

If we don't see it, in an aggregate manner, it's very difficult to prioritize.

48:31

It's a great way to get funding for initiatives.

48:33

I mean, if you can show that there is inefficiency here and you have data on it, it's so much easier to get necessary funding to do something about it and some button just by speaking the language of business.

48:42

You can't really build a business case as well to invest in technology, and to invest in ops improvements, and so forth.

48:49

Beta is really the language of business.

48:51

I think, that's why it's so important.

48:53

That's such a good point. You know, if we can say, we can speed up commercial processes by this amount of time, which means that revenue, hit the books this much fath, though. It means we can save this much on the supplier contracts by being able to negotiate them earlier.

49:07

All of these data points that we can get, and we will get in the next few months and years, or we kinda way already get some of them, they're going to transform that business case that you just talked about Victoria, OK? We've got five minutes left, and I just want to make sure that we've got a chance to sort of wrap up and give our final thoughts.

49:26

So, we'll go round the room, and just want to hear what your biggest takeaways from today, and what message you want people who are listening to take away as well. So we'll start with Collector, and then I'll work my way round.

49:39

So I think customer experience is key for implementation. And what is really, really important is a good customer support. From the software side, then you will have the chance to successfully integrate the new software and hopefully might help your business working more efficient.

50:07

Amazing.

50:08

Thank you so much Lorna to you?

50:12

Yeah.

50:13

I would say But there is no option in this day and age.

50:20

Like, we need to adapt.

50:23

Oh, perish like there is there is very clear in my mind that we've got to leverage technology. Now. I'm very aware that the market is extremely, extremely saturated and it can be really scary to get started or pick up again if implementations have gone wrong.

50:41

But I would say, focus on that alternate objective.

50:48

And pick the simplest solution that works for you all.

50:53

Use case.

50:55

And Test.

50:56

Don't be afraid to fail, and try again, but there's, there's no doubt in my mind, that we need to leverage technology, but we've got to dedicate the right resource and skill set to choosing the right solutions.

51:10

And also, that is an ongoing process. So it's not that we'll pick something. And it will work for M, is a constant evolution.

51:19

It's a constant reviewing, and making sure that we've got the right solutions for the problems that we're solving in the moment, and then we can move on to that other situations that arise.

51:31

Amazing! Thank you.

51:33

Victoria T: Yeah, I'm actually thinking very similar to along the lines, and Lorena, I think I think this is really part of the job now. And I think, especially if you are the legal leader, I mean system.

51:47

I mean, develop the legal function on how you do your work done, both as a leader, but also everyone in the team. Of course, if this is really part of the job And just because it's difficult, which I think many realize when they do that and you'll have setbacks and it's hard, doesn't mean you don't have to do it. So it's really about sort of being having the grit and just making sure that to allocate time and effort have resources for it.

52:11

I think that's really the trick there.

52:15

Make sure that they're commits and you follow through and you sort of learn from your setbacks, rather than sort of be frustrated and give up.

52:23

Amazing. Thank you. Richard.

52:27

I think there are two barriers to why legal tech is not taking off the way I thought it would have at this point in time. And I think one of them is that tech is typically not something.

52:38

Legal professionals are into, or they're a bit afraid of. And also, because I think we're a fairly conservative bunch, and we're also quite conservative about our jobs, we won't control of everything that happens, and we're also a bit afraid of becoming obsolete. If we implement this, they're not going to be as much of a need for lawyers, because the AI and automated systems will do everything that will be out of a job.

53:01

And I think both of those fears are something you have to deal with and realize, that if you don't do this, you're going to be out of a job.

53:10

This is the future. If you're not with it, you're going to be out of it.

53:14

I think we need to implement tech, we need to embrace tech.

53:18

And we need to start adding value where we truly add value and not something that can be replaced by machines. And there are big fears in both of those areas, I think, and sometimes rightfully so. But most of the time, not, we do have value in so many different areas. So, I think that's the key takeaway. For me, we need to embrace this.

53:39

Amazing, thank you, Richard. Very empowering words.

53:44

And vacate finally, final thoughts for me, as we wrap up.

53:48

Sure, no, Richard, very much agree, I think. And I think I would echo you, but but saying something else, I think, we just need to get started.

53:57

I think everyone, you know, agrees that there's no other way. And there are lots of fears on discussions, but I think this transparency and the experiences that you shared are so valuable. Let's continue this.

54:08

Let's build a stronger community for great lawyers, too, to discuss. No pins on success and what it looks like. And of course, I mean, maybe a more snappy final word.

54:21

I mean, I think the, well, I think about gen AI and the recent development the last couple of months is just that you know what a superpower. That will just fast forward everything that we have been trying to do for four years right in this legal tech space. And now, you know Christmas comes early.

54:37

And there are so many things that we can now implement, actually. That wasn't possible before, without this new technology. So. So, we'll save that for the next seminar, all the fantastic new use cases that we're super excited about. But there's so much to be done, and I do not at all fear for our jobs, but, but, we need to go with the flow.

55:00

We write, Otherwise it will be redundant, So, that's it for me. But super exciting. Thanks so much for running.

55:09

Thank you everyone. Thank you so much for joining this webinar, and your Thursday lunchtime to listen to the expertise of the panel that we've had. And it's been an absolute pleasure. Thanks for your contribution and looking forward to seeing you on the next one. Have a wonderful rest of your day everyone, and thank you.